"I am sure I beg your pardon. But I do not see Signor Ricordo."
"Ah, but he is here in The Homestead. Yes, I like that name. It makes me think of Germany, that word 'homestead.' That is why we Germans and you English are a great people. No nation can have the feeling so strongly that they are obliged to have the word 'home' without being a great people. The French with their chez vous, and the Italians with their casa sua, are poor, not only in their language, but in that sublime quality which makes a people invent the word 'home.' Forgive me for being prosy; but I like to think that the Germans and the English are akin. But what was I saying? Oh, yes, Signor Ricordo is in The Homestead, and he is looking forward to meeting you. When I told him that you knew our patron saint, he became interested, and asked that he might have the honour of being introduced. Have you finished? That is well. We will have our coffee brought into the smoking-room."
As Herbert Briarfield walked behind Herr Trübner into the smoking-room, he asked himself why he had been so foolish as to accept the latter's invitation to dine. He knew that Olive had built the place with an idea of charity, and although he had no doubt that Herr Trübner was of a good German family, he did not relish dining with a number of impecunious people. As he entered, however, he no longer regretted that he had come, for, sitting in the corner of the room, he saw the man who had aroused his interest so strongly the night before, and whom he had really come to see.
CHAPTER XX
HERBERT BRIARFIELD AND THE STRANGER
Signor Ricordo rose as Herr Trübner and Herbert Briarfield came up to him. As he did so, the latter noticed that he was of more than ordinary height, and that he was evidently a man of great muscular strength. But he quickly forgot the stranger's physical proportions as he realised that peculiar quality in the man's presence, to indicate which no better word can be used than "personality." Had he been asked afterwards to describe him, he would not have dwelt upon his physical appearance at all, except only in so far as it suggested that subtle power which made him remarkable. For he was remarkable. Before he spoke a word, Briarfield felt it. It was not that his face told him anything. The chin and the mouth were covered by a thick black beard and moustache, while the forehead was hidden from him by the Turkish fez which he wore. Nevertheless, the face was one which he knew he should never forget. The stranger's eyes were large, but they were seldom opened wide, because of his peculiar habit of half closing them. In the lamplight they looked black, but they might easily be any other colour. Moreover, the protruding forehead threw them in a shadow. His skin was much tanned, as though he had lived his life beneath a tropical sun; his large nervous hands were also almost as brown as an Indian's. There was nothing Oriental in his attire, excepting his fez, and yet he suggested the East. Even the voice was different from the English voice. It was, if one may use the terms, more subtle, more fluid. Moreover, he seldom raised his voice; even when he was deeply interested, he never showed his interest by eagerness or loudness of speech. His hearers felt it, rather than heard or saw it.
No one would have spoken of him as a talkative man, and yet he spoke freely—at least, he seemed to; nevertheless, even while he was speaking, Herbert Briarfield was wondering what he was really thinking.
"The life here must be somewhat strange to you, Signor Ricordo," said Briarfield, after their coffee was brought.
"In what way?"